Part Six: Flashburn
No, please, stop…!
Just… just a dream… I'm okay… I put my hands behind my head as I slowly began to wake up. It was only a dream.
Just… another dream….
There was a bad taste in my mouth, but rubbing it didn't seem to help at all. In fact, I could taste it even more if I tried it. I spat out the nightmare but the metallic taste didn't want to go away. I rub my mouth again and again but the taste didn't go away.
I have to remember it was just a dream… just a dream… he wouldn't do that. The flashburn of the nightmare coursed through my head, filling it with shadows as I looked up at the ceiling of my home. It was just a dream.
I rub my mouth again.
I just have to remember that he wouldn't hurt me; I was his only friend. He would never… hurt me… He just brought me here… but he would never hurt me... right? I was his... friend... wasn't I?
I rub my mouth and look up at the rocks above my head.
Flashburn. That wasn't a word. I knew it wasn't a word. But it felt like one, because it described the burning feeling in my head and my face and my chest from running in the nightmare. It hadn't been real… but I still felt the running.
I looked down at my arm and saw the deep black bruises forming where he had thrown me in the dream. But it wasn't real. It was never real. It was just something that he did to mess with my head just a little bit more. Just one more trick to prove that I was still alive and still here with him. That I had work to do. But it wasn't real, none of it ever really happened.
But the wounds were real enough, because he didn't know how to play right.
I rub my mouth and close my eyes.
"Just… a dream…" I promised myself... and I hoped with everything I had that I was telling the truth.